Chris Kampmeyer is a commercial real estate agent and part-owner of Five Star Storage, a storage company that provides communities with reliable, convenient, and innovative space.
Raised in the Twin Cities suburb of Mendota Heights, Kampmeyer experienced a predictable middle-class level of comfort while growing up.
“A lot of times I felt sheltered, but I didn’t realize it,” he says.
A multi-sport athlete who participated in baseball, basketball, and ski racing, after high school Kampmeyer went to the University of Minnesota-Duluth, where in addition to studying marketing, he also played baseball, albeit regrettably.
“That [playing baseball] turned out to be a mistake because I didn’t like baseball that much. It was more of a sport that I was good at without really trying, so I was encouraged to pursue that path.”
Kampmeyer’s time on the UMD baseball roster was short-lived, and after graduating, he found work doing sales for a tech company.
Sadly, Kampmeyer also found that position to be unfulfilling, and after the tech company went through a merger, he explored alternative career paths.
“I never wanted to be an IT engineer or continue in the sales side of the tech industry, so I stopped and transitioned into real estate,” explains Kampmeyer, who knew family members that had found success in real estate and were willing to help guide him through the process of becoming an agent.
After securing his licensure, Kampmeyer began working in commercial real estate.
His job was to convince commercial property owners to list their buildings with him when the time came to sell.
Kampmeyer knew fostering connections and earning business would be hard, but fourteen months later, the proverbial needle had not been moved, and Kampmeyer was on the brink of being forced to navigate a career change once again.
“Most people make real estate out to be something easy that anyone can do, but it’s hard. It takes a lot of reading, research, and knowing everything you can about the different markets that you’re trying to operate in,” he says, adding that throughout that laborious fourteen-month stint, progress was minimal, but he also saw signs that he could one day secure enough clients to build a book of business.
“Early on, it was a lot of phone calls and a lot of rejection, but once I got better, gathered experience, and overcame some of my shortcomings, real estate became more enjoyable, and more feasible as a career option.”
In one case, Kampmeyer had over twenty conversations with a client about selling their property.
Those twenty phone calls occurred over a five-year span, but when that prospective client was ready to sell their commercial property, Kampmeyer earned the deal, and later, over $50,000 in commissions.
“Those phone calls were well worth it, but they never seemed like it when I was in the grind,” he admits.
“That’s because it’s hard to see progress, even though commercial real estate is a notoriously slow sales cycle.”
What makes commercial real estate challenging is that even though there is the potential to earn mammoth-sized commissions, when those deals will come is largely unpredictable, and so while the euphoria of closing a lucrative five-figure deal can keep a commercial real estate agent fed for months, the reality is that there is still so much more work to be done.
“When you close a big deal, it’s like getting to the peak after a long summit, and that’s cool, but then you quickly realize that there is another mountain to scale,” Kampmeyer says.
“And so, you can look at that and say that the never-ending process of manufacturing business is overbearing, or you can embrace the challenge. Either way, as a real estate agent, you only make money when you sell properties, so if you don’t have an active pipeline that’s consistently generating revenue, then you’re starving.”
This is one reason why after several years of cultivating relationships with commercial property owners, Kampmeyer pivoted into working with an investment group to buy commercial properties instead of working as a listing agent.
But there was also another, and perhaps more fiscally viable element to Kampmeyer’s transition.
“I saw guys who would buy a property for $1 million, and then years later, they would sell it and make a couple million dollars in profit,” Kampmeyer mentions.
“And eventually it became a question of why not me, in the sense that I was no different from the people who were doing these deals; and so I wanted to get away from being a broker who was purely facilitating deals, to someone who was actively involved in the acquisition of properties, and could benefit tremendously if that acquired property appreciated in value in the coming years.”
For Kampmeyer, it was a potentially risky switch, in that he now had money invested in properties, and if those commercial buildings faltered, then his bank account could quickly become depleted.
Inversely, by allocating resources toward long-term investments of that magnitude, Kampmeyer also was developing equity in property that one day could yield a tremendous profit.
“As a broker, you’re just selling properties,” Kampmeyer notes.
“But with owning property, of course there is an inherent risk associated with that, but simultaneously there is too much upside to ignore.”
Which is why today Kampmeyer has equity in a group that owns Five Star Storage, an entity that owns storage facilities in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
Looking ahead, Kampmeyer’s vision includes investing in more commercial properties as a way of generating additional passive income.
It’s a strategy that will require taking massive action, something he recommends that real estate agents and investors alike make a part of their psychology.
“Years ago, I was telling a client that I wanted to get into commercial real estate, and he told me that the best thing to do was to just go ahead and try to get involved right away,” Kampmeyer says.
“He didn’t say anything about waiting for the perfect moment. He just focused on the now, and over time I gained an appreciation for what he meant because so often people push things off because they’re convinced there will be a time when taking action is more convenient, but that moment might never come, and even if it does, your opportunity as an investor may have vanished. That’s why quick, decisive action is so critical.” QS
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